Jim Malatras recently announced a three million dollar emergency fund that will allow more students to enroll in nursing degree programs across the SUNY and CUNY system. 

This comes as nursing shortages reach all time highs across New York State, and the need for healthcare workers becomes more prevalent. The fund will expand nursing programs on campuses throughout the state, and train hundreds of prospective healthcare workers. 

“You need 11 million more nurses to meet the demand in the United States of America. At the current rate we’re going, we’re going to be short 40 thousand nurses,” Jim Malatras, the SUNY Chancellor said after analyzing statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor also projected that employment opportunities for nurses are expected to grow at a rate of 15%. This is much faster than any other occupation through 2026. 

Malatras said the fund is going to fill in the gaps, coming at a time when U.S. nursing programs are turning away applicants, now reaching full capacity, and unable to continue proper training. 

“We need to hire more instructors, one of the things we’re finding out is there’s not enough nursing instructors to actually teach these programs,” Malatras added. 

In addition to this initiative, Governor Kathy Hochul also stepped in, announcing a new scholarship program called “Nurses for our Future.” That will cover tuition for over one thousand new registered nurses. 

For SUNY Oswego, while there is no accredited nursing program for students on campus, Malatras explained that the program is going to act as a “pipeline” for students to get involved in healthcare if interested. 

“There’s all sorts of associated programs, I know there’s some allied health programs that Oswego has as a transition to get into healthcare,” Malatras began. He said it’s colleges like Oswego that can benefit students, and serve as a direct path into healthcare. “It’s an all hands on deck thing, we want to leverage every part of this system that we have and make it a pipeline where it’s appropriate.”

As things start slowly returning to normal amid the pandemic, Malatras also said the SUNY system is working hard to combat the pandemic in a number of ways. Since the vaccine mandate was set in place in September, and now booster shots have been made available to adults, Malatras said schools like Oswego may see more relaxed restrictions come this spring. 

“It’s been great to be back up at Oswego this semester, it’s such a different feeling,” Malatras said. “It’s great to go to an ice hockey game right now, and it’s great to see friends on-campus, it’s great to see a lecture in person, it’s great to see a musical performance, and we want to keep that up.”